I'm hurting in a deep, scared way. My husband is really upset with me for the story I've told about what's been happening between us. He says that he's hurt because he feels like he doesn't know me and like I don't know him.
I can understand that feeling. It's probably pretty shocking to read exactly what your partner thinks about the things you've been doing, especially when you're already feeling awful about yourself. I'm sorry that he got into my business that way.
While I've told him about everything I've written about here, I've definitely written it bigger here than I've told him. My feelings have been stronger here, truer to what is going on inside me, than I've shared with him. That's something I need to own...I haven't been clear about how deeply angry and afraid I've been. After a while, it started to seem pointless to talk about things with him. If I try to talk about how angry it makes me that he's not working, he would get angry and yell at me. My talking about it didn't change his behavior, and it didn't change mine. It started to seem that there's no reason to talk about it until I'm ready to leave.
I'm not ready to leave. I'm not ready to be left. I want my husband. I want him different, but I want him, and I want to be different with him.
He says that what hurts the most is that I don't seem to think that he wants to get a job. I think I'm not sure if he wants to get a job or not...what upsets me about his unemployment has nothing to do with whether or not he WANTS a job. It's that he doesn't have one. I don't really care if he wants one. I want him to have one. I want him to support himself.
What hurts me the most is his lack of empathy. It hurts me that he'd read all this crap and not think, "This sounds really hard for her," or, "She's really hurting." All he hears is me yelling at him. And I think that his lack of empathy for me has been one of the things that's been bothering me even before this whole blog-reading episode. I work all day, and I get home, and he's cold or angry or indifferent. He's never said, "I'm sorry you have to work all day." He never asks about my day, never shows any interest or empathy in the way that I'm paying for his screw-ups.
I feel so fucked up tonight, so afraid of him leaving or me wanting him to leave. The sickest thing is that I'm much more concerned with how he's hurting than with how I'm hurting. All of his focus is on him. Much (but not all! I'm getting better!) of my focus is on him.
I spent a lot of time with my sponsor this evening, and she suggested that we try marital counseling. I think that's a brilliant idea. There's some options for places with sliding scale fees that might be feasible. I think a third party could give us both a lot of insight into where we keep going wrong. I know that he and I love each other, and I refuse to believe that it's not possible for us to be together. I'm willing to try, to keep trying, to do whatever it takes to make us work. I don't know if he is.
